Frequently Asked Questions

Gas is the preferred method for curing inks. If you select a gas dryer over an electric one, you can expect a payback in approximately 3 to 5 years. Many printers find that the extra monthly cost of paying for a gas dryer is covered by their savings over their electric bill.

The infrared flash cure unit is less costly. A quartz flash cure unit, while more costly, offers you several key benefits:

• there is an instant on and off operation
• curing is faster
• you have more control over curing because of the ability to select image area zones
• they take less space since they are mounted over the print station

An indexer tells the press when and where to start, stop, and repeat movement. There are two kinds of indexers – pneumatic and servo. Because of the rigors and demands of modern day screen printing, we offer servo indexing on many of our automatic presses. A servo indexer allows the press to move faster with less vibration, giving the operator the ability to index clockwise or counter-clockwise.

With Anatol Equipment servo indexers you can utilize the step-back feature (for example: print on head #1, index right to flash on head #2, and then index back left to another print stroke on head #1). This feature allows smaller jobs to be completed without the need for a second screen, for certain colors or to require a sufficient under base for polyester type garments.

Anatol manufactures professional grade presses for the serious printer. Anatol Equipment offers the Lightning and Thunder manual presses. Both have multiple design features and a base model price that includes all the extras that others charge for or may not have available.

These manual presses offer:

• Fully functional professional gauge “micro” registration (similar to our automatic presses) with no parts to wear out.
• Side bar clamps are standard, facilitating press registration and virtually eliminating frame / mesh stress. They fit frames up to 26” X 36”.
• Since all heads down is standard, you can print multiple heads at the same time. You will be glad you have this feature.
• Optional quick release or slide style full size (16” X 22”) rubber coated aluminum pallets. This allows for instant pallet location on changeover.
• Superior rotational weight without any sacrifice in strength. This improves production and reduces operator’s muscle fatigue.
• “Compression” style adjustable tension springs that do not break.

If your shop has tight deadlines, complex job requirements, and larger production runs — an automatic press provides you with a solution to accept these jobs. With a single operator, an automatic press runs at least 3 to 5 times faster than a manual press. This speed benefit increases with larger job sizes and more complex color jobs. Ten fold increases are common. An automatic press will open up opportunities to take additional jobs without expanding your work space. This will result in better utilization of your personnel, controlling your expenses and increasing your profits.

An automatic press can typically operate at a speed up to 10 times that of a manual press. So the key benefits of an automatic press include:

• speed (increased output volume)
• ease of set up
• quality of registration
• potentially reduced labor costs and less operator fatigue

The set up time for both types of presses is similar. However, with a manual you would not have the same power requirements as you would with an automatic press. A manual press would be a consideration for a new start up shop with smaller production runs and limited color requirements.